Boaz Lazar

My research has been focused on geochemical and biogeochemical processes at and near natural interfaces such as between water (saline/fresh) and rocks (or sediments or particles) and water-atmosphere boundaries. The research covers a wide-scale variety of geological environments. I have studied fluid inclusions within crystals, microgradients between seawater and electrode surfaces, stromatolites (microbial mats), coral reefs, porewaters within corals and sediments, floods and the open sea water column. A brief description of the research activities:Sr isotopes in ground waters as tracers of the calcite-calcite and calcite-dolomite transformations; Fluid inclusions in halite and the reconstruction of the chemical evolution of the oceans during the geological history; Diagenesis of reef corals and the distribution of trace elements (proxies for paleo-oceanographic conditions) between coralline aragonite and seawater; The fate of manganese in the soil-aquifer treatment of a sewage reclamation system; Isotopic effect of CO2 influx across brine-atmosphere interface induced by intense photosynthesis; 14C fluxes into marine sediments, across freshwater seawater interface, flood water and radiocarbon budgets; Carbon, oxygen and nutrients variations in coral reefs emphasizing the role of bioeroders, the decrease in reef calcification due to eutrophication, and suggesting that reefs will stop to grow on atmospheric CO2 doubling; Nutrients budget of the northern Gulf of Aqaba, Red Sea that enable to determine the role of fish farming in the eutrophication of that oligotrophic basin; Using the disequilibrium in the U-Th series, the cosmogenic isotopes 14C and 10Be for identifying atmospheric exchange, flood intensity, fluxes into porewater and water dating and analyzing the open system effect on dating corals by the U-Th method and studying water fluxes and adsorption/desorption kinetics. 4)